I went to King's with Kenny and Germ. We had barely walked into the place when the owner of the bar comes running up to us with a calendar in hand and asks us to play on March 16th, to which we agree. So, now we have a show! Yay!
So, then, Saturday, I get a call from the drummer's girlfriend telling us that the band that was scheduled to play at The Rio had cancelled sue to the flu, and would we play that night? And we were like, "Yeah, we'll do it."
We get to the show, get set up, and soundcheck. And... it's time to start. A few more people trickle in. We start off with "Burning For You." We have the typical first set jitters, but, by the third or fourth song, we were in the zone. The place started filling up pretty fast by now, because people had spent most of the first set calling their friends on cell phones and telling them that the other band wasn't playing. We went on first break, and then whizzed through the second set, including playing a MAJOR KICK ASS version of "Radar Love" (playing it better than we have probably EVER played it) and playing two originals that had people ON THE DANCEFLOOR!!!! We took second break, played most of the third set... we were two songs from finishing the third set when... the bar's bass amp blew a tube or something. We had to take the third break two songs early to see if there was another bass amp in the building (no) and the figure out what the hell we were going to do to finish the night. We ended up running the bass through the P.A., and all went well from there on out. We were ready to quit, and annouced that we were at the end of the night. The bar was still FULL. There had to be about 100 people there. They started begging us to play one more. My Dad came up and asked us to play "Crazy Train," so I said that we would do that. Just then, a guy comes running up, and tosses a $100 on Kenny's vocal monitor and says, "Play 'Sweet Home Alabama'." Kenny turns around to us and says, "We're playing 'Sweet Home'," and he launches into it. That was super cool. The guy's name was Chuck. I'll never forget that. And then the bar paid us $100 more than we thought we were getting. SCORE!
But the best part of the whole night was this: the bartenders told me that, the night before, when the other band was playing, there had been 14 people ALL NIGHT. That, the night before, when the other band was playing, the band had left at 11. But while we were playing, they'd had to empty the till THREE TIMES, and it was full again at the end of the night. The very best part? We played REALLY well. We kicked ass. I was so proud of us. :)
So, Grandpa's musical legacy lives on. I miss him so much. And I could never thank him for this gift he gave me.
